Pierogi and the Bandit

January 25, 2010 3:44 AM

Fifty Incredible Film Posters from Poland
posted by mippy (8 comments total)

The links are now dead, but this is essentially a double post form 2006.

I agree the posters are great (by which of course I mean mippy and jonson)
posted by aubilenon at 3:56 AM on January 25, 2010

Pretty fucking cool, though.
posted by a non e mouse at 4:24 AM on January 25, 2010

Yeah, #aubilenon, the layout of the new page was different, but many of those images looked awfully familiar.

(I suppose a wayback machine examination might be in order, but then again, this FPP might just get deleted.)
posted by vhsiv at 4:42 AM on January 25, 2010

For moment I thought that read "Film Posters from Behind", and that it would feature white rectangles, as some strange artsy joke.
posted by Harry at 5:15 AM on January 25, 2010

Trust the Poles to take a movie like Alien and make it seem unsettling.
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:20 AM on January 25, 2010

Well, if we're going to do this subject again, let's add some substance:

A lot of patronizing drivel had been written about the 'Polish School' of poster design being a 'product' of a 'resistance to Communism' or some such (and by extension, of an overwhelming desire to breathe free under the learned guidance of a Bushmonkey-on-a-cheney). That view, espoused by Western writers who don't know any better, and Polish ones (who should know better) has been omnipresent lately. No matter that the idea of art as an expression of political circumstance is par excellence a classic communist one.

In fact, quite the opposite seems to be true : free from commercial stranglehold, these artists produced brilliant works over an extended period of time. A lot of talented people found themselves in the right place at the right time. Like any artistic movement (or 'school'), it had its own dynamics, peaks and valleys. Indeed, some of the most accomplished works were political (pro-socialist). And now the fact that Polish film poster is dead (and had been so since 1989 when freedom dawned, and more to the point, film distribution was privatized) is further evidence of that. [...]

Then 1990 came and the State monopoly ended. Suddenly the distribution of movies in Poland was taken over by Warner, Paramount, etc., and the Polish poster as we knew it ceased to exist. Nowadays, most films are released with the same sort of ad display as in the US - essentially a photo montage of stars with approved typeface. Very few designers try to continue their work, rarely issuing a very limited series of posters (300 to 500). These are never displayed on the streets but are sold in galleries.

Gallery.
posted by pracowity at 5:45 AM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

I especially love the Fatal Attraction one.
posted by echo target at 6:12 AM on January 25, 2010

A friend of mine has this Butch Cassidy one autographed by the artist.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:43 AM on January 25, 2010